In a surprising move, the former Secretary-General of the National Liberation Front, Djamal Ould Abbas, broke the wall of silence by issuing a statement to deny that he had resigned from the party’s general secretariat, which coincided with the failure of the acting secretary-general, Mouadh Bouchareb, from the party’s central headquarters in Algiers Hydra.

Ould Abbas said, in a statement which he signed on Saturday, that he was taking a period of rest after he was sick, and surprised observers who thought that the issue of the party’s leadership was over, and that the chairman the People’s National Assembly was commissioned to replace him momentarily.

“The Secretary-General of the National Liberation Front (FLN) confirms that he is in a period of respite after he was ill, and confirms that he did not made statements and that all his statements in some of the media are unfounded and totally disproved, and refuted the rumors about this subject”, the statement explained.

Ould Abbas did not appear in public since Wednesday, the day in which the official news agency APS, pulished a cable which talked about the end of Ould Abbas functions at the head of the party, as the same cable reported the news of the appointment of Mouadh Bouchareb to replace him momentarily, citing an official source, whose identity remain unknown.

APS confirmed the resignation of Ould Abbas “for health reasons necessitating a long sick leave, and Mouadh Bouchareb will temporarily replace him at the leadership of the party, until the party bodies will decide to appoint a new General Secretary in this post.”

Ould Abbas did not publicly announce that he had submitted his resignation, and the senior member of the political bureau, Ahmed Boumehdi, had denied that Ould Abbas resigned, just after leaking news that Ammar Saadani successor was stepped down.

It is known that the resignation of FLN’s General Secretary was followed by the assignment of the oldest member of the Political Bureau (Ahmed Boumehdi) to the post of Acting Secretary-General to organize a conference to elect a new leadership, according to Article IX of the party’s rules of procedure, and perhaps that is the reason behind Boumehdi statement, who denied the news of the resignation of Ould Abbas.

Until yesterday, Saturday, Mouadh Bouchareb, did not undertake any activity as the party’s GS. He was also absent from the party’s activity and he was supposed to supervise it in the same day, namely, the administration of the initial elections for the semi-renewal of the National Assembly at the party’s central headquarters, and he was represented by the chairman of the parliamentary group of the lower chamber, Mohamed Bouabdallah.

The sudden “appearance” of Ould Abbas left a number of questions about what had happened since last Wednesday about his fate, and the fate of his successor, Mouadh Boucharab, and the APS news agency’s quoted source which confirmed the resignation of Ould Abbas, and hence the credibility of the agency, as a media means to transmit official news as well.

Is FLN facing a new crisis, as happened on the eve of the presidential elections of 2014, under the conflict of legitimacy between the former General Secretary and the new leadership? What is the background of Ould Abbas courage to defend his survival as a General Secretary? And the repeating scenario of Said Bouhadja, who refused to resign from the presidency of the People’s National Assembly, to prevent him from entering his office and declare the vacancy and the election of his successor, or is it a maneuver by Ould Abbas friends to maintain the political gains?